Arturia V76-Pre, User Manual, Page: 6 / 41

1. WELCOME
As part of the rebuilding effort after World War II, the Northwest German Radio
(Nordwestdeutsche Rundfunk or NWDR) was established in 1948, as a public corporation.
The NWDR faced the need to develop a complete new equipment standard for the German
radio network. This was done in cooperation with the Institute of Broadcast Technology
of Hamburg, and one of the results of their work was the V72, developed between 1949
and 1952 as a microphone and main studio amplifier, under the technical supervision of
Professor Nestler. Nestler had previously been the head of R&D for the Telefunken Electro
Acoustic Lab. Telefunken itself was a joint-venture of two other German companies, AEG and
Siemens, and was established in 1903.
It should be mentioned that Telefunken was granted exclusive and unlimited access to
scientific resources from state universities, private companies and all branches of the
military regarding radio broadcast and audio production, and this led them holding almost
all of the European patents relating to radio and audio electronic circuits up into the early
1960s.
Modeled after the pre-war V41 (created in 1928), the V72 had many circuits that were almost
identical, but incorporated some modern advancements. After using EF40 tubes in the
earlier models, manufacturers quickly changed to the sonically superior EF804 and EF804S.
Early V72 models were built by a company called Maihak, and also by Telefunken. In 1954,
Siemens and Tonographie Apparatebau (TAB) became sub-contractors and took over the
manufacturing of the V72 line.
The V72 wasn't a single model. Actually, there was an entire family of V72 tube amplifiers,
all built around the same V72 circuit: the V71, the V76, the V77 and the V78, and also many
variations, as the V72a, the V72b, the V72s, the V74a, the V70 and the V77b.
Besides the German radio broadcast, the V72 was used by most of the European recording
companies like EMI, Decca/Telefunken and others. Siemens designed the V72s to
accommodate the specific needs of these recording studios. These units featured a fixed
gain of 40dB and lower input impedance. Apparently, it was EMI who commissioned
Siemens to build the special 40dB gain V72s modules ("s" stands for studio), opposed to the
34dB gain of the V72 which was the standard throughout the German broadcast industry.
Around three-hundred V72s modules were manufactured in total.
The V76 was two V72 cascaded in series, with additional control features. The unit was
capable of achieving 76dB of gain and driving a signal farther with little to no loss. More
importantly, the unit came with a switchable input pad. This allowed the user to change
the gain in 6dB steps across 12 positions - much more control than the original V72 had.
Additionally, the V76 typically came with either an 80Hz or 120Hz High Pass filter allowing
the user to get rid of rumble from the mic stand when recording voice. There was a special
V76m version though that had no filters and a full frequency response from 20Hz to 20kHz.
This version was regarded more as a reference amplifier.
The V76 was designed for applications where the "standard" V72 could not provide enough
gain (like for example, dynamic mics) and where it was essential to have a switchable
variety of gain steps plus some selectable high and low frequency pre-filtering. Although the
high end frequencies sound muffled when compared to a V72, many engineers preferred
the V76 due to the extra controls, increased gain and huge bass sound it was capable of
delivering.
The main versions of the V76 available were:
2 Arturia - User Manual V76-Pre - WELCOME